by Penny Grubb
‘It was pretty Wild West even before yesterday,’ Annie commented, thinking of all the contradictory threats and bribes flying about; Vince having Vitoria intercepted; Leah grabbing her back. And Carl, rushing from pillar to post taking orders from both sides, but even he had balked at the attempt to set the trailer up at his place and having two murders – Vitoria and Vince – committed on his doorstep. The farmhouse was the preferred venue; quiet, out of the way, but with inadequate utilities. The racecourse must have been the last-ditch fall-back option, the place where a box could be parked without comment. A week with no race meetings, the venue booked out to the pony camp with Carl on hand to clear them out. It had probably been his idea to tip off Jean and then push her in the Thompsons’ direction. Was it bad luck that her call to the police resulted in Greaves going out to see her, or was he on the lookout for anything concerning the mysterious Lance Malers?
There was a thing. ‘Pat,’ she said. ‘I don’t think Scott had made the link. I don’t think he knew that Lance Malers was Carl.’
Pat shrugged. ‘Probably not. Lance was supposed to keep his nose clean and stay under the radar. An insurance persona as it were.’
Annie nodded. She and Pieternel held such insurances, too. ‘Well, he’s cashed that in. I’m going to get Vitoria,’ she said, standing. ‘We need to work out what we’re going to do.’
‘Can you ring up to my colleague’s room?’ she asked the man at the reception desk.
He turned to pluck an envelope from the shelf behind him. ‘Your colleague checked out, Miss Raymond. She said to give this to you or Miss Thompson when you asked for her.’
Annie’s heart lurched. Had someone found them? ‘Was anyone with her? Did anyone call here for her? When did she check out?’
‘Uh … no, she was on her own. When you went up to your rooms after breakfast, she came straight back down.’
Annie ripped open the envelope. It contained a single sheet of paper.
Thank you. Best I go alone now. V
She took it across to Pat, who said, ‘Solves what to do about her, anyway.’
Annie opened her mouth to point out that Vitoria was penniless, friendless and being hunted by a pack that would rip her to shreds, but on the point of speech, she held back, remembering Reg Brocklesby. I’ll sort things out for you. No need to worry about finance yet awhile. He’d wanted Vitoria under his wing. He thought Carl had snatched the chance to grab her away from Leah. People like Reg Brocklesby didn’t draw breath unless there was a payout. Maybe Vitoria wasn’t as defenceless as Annie had thought, not now they’d given her a head start. She’d have to hope so, because there was precious little she could do for her now.
‘I’d normally have popped into the office Saturday morning,’ said Pat, ‘but may as well give it a miss. Shall we get lunch?’
‘Well … there was something else. I didn’t want to worry you before but I rang into the office answer phone. It was jam packed. Clients all playing hell with you and Barbara for missed appointments and late reports. I think we’d better go in. I’ll help you try and clear up.’
‘Oh, lawd, I’d kind of blanked all that out.’
Pat looked so crestfallen that Annie relented and said, ‘Half an hour either way won’t make any difference. Let’s do lunch. Then we’ll go to the office, get to know the worst and find ourselves some coffee while we talk about how to tackle it.’
After they’d eaten Annie drove them through town, up along the course of the river Hull. She thought back to Pieternel’s message. Mike would be over from Zurich in a week or so. She’d go to the airport to meet him. That would surprise him. She felt bad planning to go off to enjoy herself leaving Pat with this wreck of a business, but she’d give her a day or so, try to get her back on her feet. It was a relief there’d been no link with the job back in London. Anyone trying to lure the company into a breach of their professional code would never have sent Christa away. With a guilty start, she realized she hadn’t given Christa a thought since the call last night. The poor girl must be suffering a monumental hangover from whatever she’d been fed.
As they pulled up by the office and made their way inside, voices and the sound of a radio met them. Annie walked in ahead of Pat and they both stood rooted to the spot. Barbara sat at one of the desks, the phone to her ear, her hand raised imperiously to shush Annie and Pat. One side of her face bore the shadow of a waning black eye; otherwise she looked the same as ever.
‘Yes, exactly,’ said a clipped voice from the far side of the room, making Annie and Pat turn in unison to stare at Christa who stood by the filing cabinet, her mobile to her ear. ‘I’m on my way with it now,’ she went on. ‘These things are best done face to face in my experience.’
As Barbara ended her call, Christa clicked off her phone, gathered up a stack of papers and turned to Barbara. ‘I’m off out to the Joynsons. I’ll call in for the Proctor report on the way back and shall I bring you a sandwich and some coffee?’
‘Thank you, Christa,’ said Barbara beaming her a smile.
‘Hi Annie,’ Christa acknowledged her as she pushed past. ‘Can’t stop. Catch up later.’
Pat stared aghast at her sister. ‘You shouldn’t be here. You’re not well enough. You discharged yourself, didn’t you?’
‘It’s a good job I did. Just look at all this mess. And did I hear right that you dragged Annie out to see Vince? As if he’d want her at his sickbed. And you know what Leah’s like. She’ll be grumpy about it for an age.’
‘I didn’t … well, we had to … Vince … well, Leah—’
‘And thank heavens for Christa Andrew. I don’t know where she came from but she’s been efficiency itself. There were clients threatening to sue from all angles this morning. With her help I’ve held back the tide. We’re keeping her on. I’ve already hired her so no arguments. Annie can go and we’ll try and recoup whatever Vince paid her.’
The phone rang and Pat sprang forward, but Barbara glared at her. ‘I’ll deal with it.’
Pat drew back and turned to Annie. ‘What’s with Christa?’ she asked.
‘Whatever they pumped into her out there; that and a full fifteen hours’ sleep. It’s cleared her system. This is how she is when she’s clean. I’ve not seen her like it for ages.’
‘But yesterday …’
‘Whatever they gave her it was a massive dose, and with whatever was already in her …’ She shrugged and left the rest unsaid, but wondered if Christa’s theatrical ebullience might be covering huge lapses in her memory. Which wouldn’t, she mused, be such a bad thing.
‘Will it last? Will she stay clean?’
Annie shrugged. ‘On past experience, a week, ten days. Who knows?’
‘… I shall look forward to it,’ purred Barbara’s voice as she replaced the handset in its cradle, her professional smile freezing into a scowl as she turned back to face them. ‘And on top of all that,’ she scolded, ‘I hear there’s been a ruckus out at Vince’s. The last thing he needs when he’s as ill as he is.’
‘Uh … What’s happened?’
‘Some gang of Vince’s hired muscle got above themselves. Injured Leah apparently but she’s all right. Some bother with illegal immigrants. Poor Leah got wind of it and went after them. She called the police but one of them attacked her before anyone got there.’
Poor Leah! Annie and Pat exchanged a glance. Annie wondered, had Leah really managed to keep her nose clean after all this? But who was going to say anything against her? Hassan hadn’t seen her. His young daughter had, but Annie supposed she’d talk her way out of that; say she’d been forced to do whatever she’d done. And after all, the emergency call had come from Leah’s phone. It was too late for Leah for keep Vince alive. Annie was surprised the debacle at the racecourse hadn’t killed him off, but it wouldn’t be long.
As Annie thought through the implications of Vince’s impending death, she slipped out of the office to the comparative privacy of the landing, cradling her phone and thinki
ng through the call she had to make to Scott to arrange to meet him one last time before she left.
Without ever properly thinking it through, Annie had always assumed that whole strata of wheeling and dealing would die with Vince; that whole areas would clean themselves up. Not a bit of it, she knew now. It would be a far dirtier game once Leah had fought it out with Reg and taken charge. Reg Brocklesby might hold all the cards on paper, but Leah wielded the power; Leah was the one with the army at her back. Annie shuddered at the thought of the carnage that would ensue, with worse to come once Leah had established her position. From the first time she’d met him all those years ago, Annie had wanted to see Vince Sleeman wiped off the map of this area. She’d always known it was a goal way beyond her means, but it wasn’t beyond everyone’s means if they struck fast and took advantage of what would be a small window of opportunity whilst Leah and Reg were focused on each other and the outer strands of Vince’s enterprises were adrift and in chaos.
Scott might not be the ideal contact for this, but he was straight and he wasn’t stupid. Annie had promised to pass on the information that came to her through unofficial channels as long as he was open with her. She wasn’t certain he’d kept to his side of the bargain but that didn’t matter now. He’d know what to do with the pointers she could give him; how to take advantage of the unstable Sleeman empire while Vince hovered between life and death. Then there were Carl’s hints about where the bodies were buried. They might not be reliable, but she’d pass them on.
Not wanting to be cornered into a discussion she wasn’t yet ready to have, she sent him a text, telling him to be at the Humber Bridge country park at three o’clock. It would take no more than half an hour to debrief him, and then she’d be on the road and heading back south, knowing she’d finally closed a chapter that had opened when she’d first arrived at Hull’s Paragon station seven years earlier.
She would let the Thompsons reap the rewards of Christa’s temporary normality. They needed all the help they could get. She slipped the phone into her pocket and stepped back into the office to hear Barbara snap at Pat, ‘You can go downstairs and see what’s come in the post. It hadn’t arrived when I got here.’
As Annie entered Barbara’s attack swung round to her. ‘I found that poor girl on her own. Coping extraordinarily well. If Vince had only sent her in the first place. It’s all very well for you two. We’d all like to spend a day in the countryside. What have you been doing out there? Lazing about gossiping, I suppose, not an awkward character in sight, and we’ve had them by the dozen. Well, don’t just stand there.’ The glare turned again to Pat. ‘Go on!’
With the barest of glances signalling assent between them, Pat and Annie turned and left the office together, ignoring Barbara’s tetchy, ‘It doesn’t need both of you, for heaven’s sake!’
‘Coffee?’ said Annie as they made their way down the stairs.
‘Lead me to it, kid,’ replied Pat.
By the Same Author
Like False Money
The Doll Makers
The Jawbone Gang
Copyright
© Penny Grubb 2012
First published in Great Britain 2012
This edition 2013
ISBN 978 0 7198 0961 3 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0962 0 (mobi)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0963 7 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0729 9 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of Penny Grubb to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988